Mobile Phones

Chronology of Coverage

Mar. 16, 2015

Police departments across country are adopting so-called StingRay device, which allows them to track and listen in on cellphones, but technology has come with unusual nondisclosure requirement; FBI officials have warned that any discussion of StingRay could allow criminals and terrorists to circumvent it; issue has elevated stakes in heated debate about privacy and public disclosure of government practices. MORE

Mar. 2, 2015

The company is experimenting with a network that would rely primarily on Wi-Fi technology and use cellular towers as a backup. MORE

Feb. 26, 2015

French-Dutch digital security company Gemalto says it believes American and British intelligence services hacked into company's networks over period of two years, beginning in 2010, in order to collect mobile phone records; report is based on records obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. MORE

Jan. 26, 2015

Cablevision Systems launches low-cost mobile phone service, known as Freewheel, that uses Wi-Fi instead of standard cellular networks; service, which will offer unlimited data, talking and texting worldwide when device is connected to Wi-Fi, will only cost $29.95 a month, or $9.95 a month for its Optimum Online customers. MORE

Jan. 8, 2015

New York City lifts nearly 10-year-old ban on cellphones in public schools. MORE

Jan. 7, 2015

New York City Education Dept plans to announce that it will lift ban of cellphones in schools, which was put in place by former Mayor Michael R Bloomberg; ban was troublesome to parents who were unable to contact their children. MORE

Dec. 27, 2014

Proliferation of competing wireless phone plans of varying complexity have confused cellphone customers and, in some cases, even wireless phone company executives; competition was spurred by T-Mobile's decision to scrap traditional two-year contract, starting a trend that makes it impossible for companies to expect consumers to realistically compare and navigate range of offerings. MORE

Dec. 20, 2014

T-Mobile agrees to pay at least $90 million in fines to settle charges that it unlawfully billed customers for unwanted premium text messages, practice known as cramming; is third major mobile phone carrier, along with AT& T and Sprint, to make deal with regulators. MORE

Nov. 27, 2014

Flip phones are making comeback among some celebrities as retro accessory. MORE

Nov. 13, 2014

The Upshot; Pew Research Center poll finds that Americans are deeply concerned about privacy when sharing personal information via email, cellphone and landlines, yet they continue to use the services. MORE

Nov. 3, 2014

Poor cellphone and Internet service is fact of life in many parts of Europe, but prices are among lowest in world; now, European Commission, which just began its five-year-term, is prioritizing more investment and costlier Internet and cellphone services rather than affordability and antitrust concerns. MORE

Nov. 1, 2014

New York City is preparing to lift its longstanding ban on cellphones carried by students in schools; will join an increasing number of cities, including Chicago and Miami, where school leaders are yielding to ubiquity of mobile phones and futility of trying to keep them out of the classroom. MORE

Oct. 17, 2014

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James B Comey says the 'post-Snowden pendulum' that has driven Apple and Google to offer fully encrypted cellphones has 'gone too far;' hints at action to unlock photos, emails and contacts stored on the phones. MORE

Oct. 4, 2014

British entrepreneurs Kirsty Kenney and Harold Craston are transforming some of London's iconic-but-antiquated red telephone booths into free, solar-powered charging stations for mobile devices. MORE

Oct. 2, 2014

Gadgetwise column offers advice for selling old cellphones, online or offline, which can offset cost of upgrading it. MORE

Sep. 3, 2014

Iranians are now permitted to send and receive photos and videos on their cellphones, marking victory for Pres Hassan Rouhani, who has long called for relaxing Iran's tight grip on the Internet but has had only limited success in the face of stern opposition from hard-liners. MORE

Aug. 24, 2014

Anna Bernasek Datapoints column compares standard American cellphone plan with one in Great Britain, revealing marked difference in cost; notes that regulatory policy and lack of competition cause American plan to be $41.50 more per month, while offering inferior service. MORE

Aug. 9, 2014

Editorial urges Department of Transportation to rule against allowing cellphone calls on commercial flights; contends there is no compelling reason to allow cellphone calls on airplanes other than to provide airlines with another source of revenue. MORE

Jul. 14, 2014

Myanmar's technology sector, long held back by limited telephone and Internet infrastructure, could experience surge amid rapidly developing cellphone network and decreasing smartphone costs; shift could mean that many of country's 60 million people will experience Internet for the first time through cellphones. MORE

Jul. 12, 2014

Editorial Keeping Track column offers updates on proposed measure that would make it legal for Americans to 'unlock' their cellphones, Mississippi child who appeared to have been cured of HIV infection and response of American universities to allegations of sexual assault on campuses. MORE

Jul. 5, 2014

Federal Trade Commission has filed lawsuit accusing T-Mobile USA of profiting from tacking unauthorized charges on customers' phone bills, practice called cramming; practice is common on bills for traditional phone lines, but only recently began to appear on bills for mobile phone usage. MORE

Jul. 4, 2014

Jim Dwyer About New York column recounts experience he shared with musician Elvis Costello when both, along with family and entourage, were detained at Ohio's Columbus Airport due to security scare; notes fellow Irishman Costello's amusement when told the source of the scare was inadvertent phone alarm set off by Dwyer's father. MORE

Jul. 4, 2014

Editorial warns European Commission's approval of merger of German cellphone companies Telefonica and E-Plus will significantly reduce competition and encourage further consolidation in the industry; notes that there is clear evidence that telecom mergers have already hurt customers in Europe. MORE

Jun. 26, 2014

Supreme Court ruling making it harder for police to search cellphones without warrant could lead to procedural changes around country; opinion has been hailed as major advance for privacy in digital age, but law enforcement experts express concern that need to acquire warrant could hinder police work, risking loss of evidence. MORE

Jun. 26, 2014

Editorial applauds Supreme Court decision protecting cellphones from being searched without warrant during arrest; points to vast amount of personal information contained on average cellphone and holds that rights to privacy of phone's contents outweighs needs of law enforcement. MORE

Jun. 26, 2014

Supreme Court unanimously rules that police need warrants to search cellphones of people they arrest; it is major victory for privacy rights in digital age; decision almost certainly also applies to searches of tablet and laptop computers, and its reasoning may apply to searches of homes and businesses and of information held by third parties like phone companies. MORE

Jun. 26, 2014

Linda Greenhouse Op-Ed column holds that, in light of complex history of search and seizure cases, most remarkable thing about Supreme Court decision banning search of cellphones is simplicity of verdict; reflects that justices, in asserting that cellphones are fundamentally different than other objects people commonly carry, are recognizing extent to which issue of cellphone privacy affects everyone, including themselves. MORE

Jun. 13, 2014

Editorial underscores importance of federal appeals court ruling restricting government's access to customer location data stored by cellphone companies; warns that capacity of cellphones to track people's movements poses substantial and growing threat to privacy; calls on judges and lawmakers to make sure that technology is not improperly used to get around Fourth Amendment protections. MORE

Jun. 12, 2014

Federal appeals court in Atlanta rules that the Fourth Amendment protects information about people’s locations based on the cell towers their mobile phones are using; ruling means investigators must get judicial warrants to obtain cell site data. MORE

May. 1, 2014

Apr. 30, 2014

Supreme Court seems torn as it considers a pair of cases about whether the police need warrants to search the cellphones of people they arrest. MORE

Apr. 28, 2014

Supreme Court will consider two cases about whether police need warrants to search cellphones of people they arrest; cases will be a major test of how to interpret the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. MORE

Apr. 5, 2014

Merchants near New York City schools in Queens are doing brisk business allowing students to store their cellphones for a fee; New York City schools prohibit students form carrying cellphones in public schools; competition among neighborhood merchants has become so fierce that the daily storage rate has dropped to 50 cents a day, from $1. MORE

Mar. 23, 2014

Stephanie Rosenbloom The Getaway column discusses three simplest ways to keep data fees in check while traveling abroad. MORE

Mar. 19, 2014

Panel of lawmakers in European Parliament vote for tougher measures to promote equal access to the Internet and to lower rates for cellphone use across European Union, but many lawmakers, consumers and industry groups criticize draft legislation and want changes. MORE

Feb. 8, 2014

National Security Agency’s once-secret program that is collecting bulk records of Americans’ domestic phone calls is taking in a relatively small portion of total volume of such calls each day; program struggles to take in cellphone data, which has undergone explosive growth and presents additional technological hurdles. MORE

Jan. 20, 2014

In past doctor-patient relationships, there was no question whose time took precedence and who was kept waiting. Thanks to technology, physicians are finding out what it feels like. MORE

Jan. 19, 2014

Sociologist Keith Hampton, thirty years later, reenacts 1981 study by urbanist William H Whyte exploring how people used public space in New York City's Bryant Park; findings reveal that more people nowadays, especially women, hang out in public spaces and that cell phone use is not that prevalent. MORE

Jan. 18, 2014

Supreme Court agrees to hear a pair of cases about whether the police need a warrant to search the cellphones of people they arrest, presenting a major test of the meaning of the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. MORE

Jan. 16, 2014

New York City subway officials hope to expand cellphone reception to all underground trains, but practice has persisted for years on city’s elevated lines, offering insight to what commutes will be like when it is more widespread. MORE

Jan. 9, 2014

Major wireless carriers are aggressively wooing new customers as competition grows; T-Mobile says it will pay the termination fees of new customers, and give them trade-in credit of up to $300 for their old cellphones. MORE

Jan. 5, 2014

David Segal The Haggler column; customer’s complaint to a cellphone equipment seller is met with stern language--complete with a sprinkling of capital letters. MORE

Jan. 2, 2014

Tool Kit column; tablets and cellphones can transmit disease, so cleaning them regularly should be more than an aesthetic preference. MORE

Dec. 28, 2013

Alina Tugend Shortcuts column revisits topics covered in 2013, including increasing popularity of no-contract cellphone plans and new inventions in technology. MORE

Dec. 19, 2013

Kit Eaton App Smart column; mobile apps can save cellular telephone user money by monitoring mobile and Wi-Fi use, and even make comparisons with other users. MORE

Dec. 13, 2013

Transportation Department will consider banning the use of cellphones for voice calls aboard airplanes, reaction to public outrage at a Federal Communications Commission proposal to lift a rule that has long forbidden the use of mobile phones during flight. MORE

Dec. 9, 2013

Sen Edward J Markey, Massachusetts Democratic, plans to introduce legislation that will provide stronger privacy protections for consumers; included in law will be requirement of warrant for police to get cellphone location information from carrier as proof that it will help uncover evidence of crime; carriers complied with 1.3 million requests from law enforcement agencies in 2011. MORE

Dec. 5, 2013

New documents leaked by Edward J Snowden reveal that the National Security Agency is tracking the location and movements of hundreds of millions of cellphones outside the United States in an effort to find suspicious travel patterns or coordinated activities by intelligence targets. MORE

Dec. 5, 2013

India’s huge poor population, broad adoption of cellphones and low airtime rates could make it the world’s largest market for wireless money transfers; number of transfers has more than doubled since September 2012, moving annualized equivalent of $3.2 billion. MORE

Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, who wrote “Becoming Steve Jobs,” discuss the evolution of Steve Jobs and how they won Apple’s cooperation for the unauthorized biography of its former chief executive.

Twenty-six percent of all smartphone users have expressed an interest in paying for goods and services using their mobile phones. Almost 40 percent of people who shop at J. Crew are ready to pay by phone, as are a substantial number of customers at lower-end retailers like H&M (33.4 percent) and Chuck E. Cheese’s (32.3 percent).

The jury found that some Samsung smartphones and tablets had violated Apple patents covering things like the slide-to-unlock feature, which opens the phone’s features to users. The bulk of the damages — $99 million — were for a patent that covered a method for so-called quick links.